Blue Origin wins NASA CLPS contract for VIPER lunar rover delivery in 2028
Summary: NASA selected Blue Origins Blue Moon Mark 2 lander on June 19, 2026, to deliver the revived VIPER ice-prospecting rover to the lunar south pole in 2028.
According to SpaceNews, NASA announced on June 19, 2026 that it has awarded the next Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order to Blue Origin. The company's Blue Moon Mark 2 lander is expected to deliver the VIPER ice-prospecting rover to the lunar south pole in 2028. VIPER was previously cancelled and later revived through a new competitive procurement, with Blue Origin ultimately selected as the delivery provider.
Blue Moon Mark 2 is the larger cargo variant in Blue Origins lander family, designed to carry heavier payloads than the earlier Mark 1 series and is, according to reports, well suited to ferry a mass-limited rover like VIPER along with its supporting equipment. The mission aims to place VIPER on the lunar surface so it can resume its original survey of water ice, work that NASA views as a critical precursor to in-situ resource utilization planning for the Artemis crewed landings and longer-term lunar presence.
Contract value, milestone schedule, and lander delivery dates were not fully detailed in the initial reporting and remain to be confirmed by the formal NASA–Blue Origin contract announcement. VIPERs prior cancellation over cost and schedule concerns, followed by a re-competition and award to Blue Origin, reflects NASAs continued strategy of running parallel CLPS providers to spread risk across multiple commercial landers rather than relying on a single supplier for lunar surface science.